CNN Says Korean ‘Soaps’ Are Popular In Asia

Recently CNN uploaded a short segment to their Youtube channel called On the Road: South Korean Popular Culture. The clip talked about how Korean entertainment like Kpop and Kdrama are taking Asia by storm. It went behind the scenes of My Lovely Girl and talked to someone at SBS and Rain, then moved to Kpop and talked to the leader of YG.

Now I’m not sure why this has rubbed me the wrong way. Usually, anytime anyone here in the US media talk about anything Korean entertainment, I get that happy glow, thrilled that people here are taking notice, almost as if that validates my love of the stuff.

But this? Irritates me a bit.

Could it be the dubbing? Why do they assume that people here in the US won’t pay attention if they have to read? Don’t they run a rolling bit of headlines at the bottom of the page? Dubbing somehow diminishes the sentiment of what the people are saying.

Could it be the fact that they completely ignored the fan-base of Kdrama and Kpop here in the States? The only mentioned the fact that Korean ‘soft power’ has become huge in Asia. No, its not huge here yet, but it’s growing in leaps in bounds every year. KCon alone had 45 thousand people in attendance more than doubling last years. I think that they missed a more interesting aspect of the story.

Shock and Awe. It was the shock and awe, and the implication that the popularity is a passing fad which could collapses at any moment which made me go, “what the??”

Then there is always the tried and true irritant–referring to dramas as soaps–yep that is a fast way to get my back up.

Let’s have Rain talk about the appeal of the Korean dramas–but only actually have him speak for like 5 seconds on the appeal of the hero, you know–the sexiness. (Although, I really did like hearing him speak in English.)

It was interesting to see behind the scenes–or more in the warehouses of where the dramas are made. I did also enjoy their obvious YG bias.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just being picky. I guess there is such a thing as any publicity being good publicity and if someone watches this (do people watch CNN anymore?) and get’s intrigued and tries the first one, I guess then that’s worth it and we should call it a win. Right?